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WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO INCREASE THE LEGACY OF YOUR GAME DESIGN?
Posts
Snodgrass
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CloseJust an initial disclaimer:
-There's no "perfect design" and there's no definite method for this question. I know that and that's why I'm making this topic. The quest for the hypotheses of many (especially contradictory ones) is just as much if not more important than a thread to discovery a theory.
-Yes, many times things last because of a high budget and many modern marketing techniques work towards things of those nature and those things often have nothing to do with the actual design of the game. That doesn't mean there aren't aspects that do apply to a game. Again, this thread is about gathering hypotheses and not stating the unhelpful stock and general obvious.
-The thread is phrased this way because it rarely helps to try to answer this generically. Take things like romantic characters. How do you make people remember them more? Great emotions, great dialogues, attractive design...but that doesn't mean just because you can point out elements of the trope that you would have thought of it before something actually occurred. Everyone thought the idea of vampires was played out and then Twilight came for example. Horrible as it is, Twilight's legacy far surpasses many better stories.
To help streamline this thread, I have put forth a few categories to consider when answering:
Reviewability:
This is a term I just came up with after sporadic viewing of the Social Network from different random intervals thanks to reruns on HBO.
The movie is notable to me not so much because of the movie but because of the conversation and the content surrounding the movie.
Unlike other movies, I haven't seen any other movie that has "hated" reviews that address the content in a shallower manner than a meaningful one. Mostly about it being boring. Equally mind boggling is that the like reviews are not very caring of the actual contents of the movie and focuses too much on the themes.
The result is that you have a movie whose intellectual content does not match it's legacy. That is to say where Citizen Kane may have people talking about Rosebud or Batman may have people talking about the Joker, people will remember Social Network as simply being Social Network and that's not bad but it's flawed in that it doesn't give credence to the actual contents inserted not only by the director but the themes raised in the entire movie.
For videogames, the easiest ways to spot this is to look at fanfictions. There are simply games that people would write more fanfictions for and other mainstream games where they won't. If ratio is not a question than content diversity certainly is.
You might wonder what this has to do with reviews but if you look at many of the clues for these factor, many of them start from reviews.
There are games with 10/10 stories like Metal Gear Solid that generations from now, people would barely talk about on their own except if marketing raises it. Then there is the opposite. Games like Portal who are only notable because of a gimmick and an addictive song ending will forever be brought up in people's heads. In RPG maker games, there are even games with cheaper stories that get more comments and quality stories that are respected but barely get any comments or discussions until which games you like pops up.
Memetic possibility:
You can't quite account for viral especially if we're taking away the marketing stuff that actually has to do with the actual game content rather than the game hype but that doesn't mean there aren't designs that are more talked about.
For example, people will talk about the increase of zippers in modern Final Fantasy costumes but they will rarely talk about the character designs in Vagrant Story despite it being a superior game with a fan following.
The difference between reviewability and this is that it pre-empts releases and then seeps into releases.
If you've monitored Gamefaqs, you've all seen this. Some unknown games suddenly jump in message board rankings because lots of people are talking about it even if it's just a request for more FAQs.
Good old games:
Good old games are games that years down the line people still talk about. Many times these are mainstream games but many times they are not. These are the types of games that encourage mods even at a later date or make people make obscure fansites for a game that was supposed to be bland, predictable and limited according to the reviewers.
Database notability:
These are the games that somehow enter the hallways of abandonware sites or indygaming databases. For example there are Rpg maker games that are on reloaded.org and there are rpg games in this very site that get the hits.
This quality is two fold. First, the quality of a game to be on more databases so that years down the line someone is guaranteed to find and maybe talk about it.
The second is pure download hits. Often times these are misleading because it can involve things with sex in their names regardless of actual content but you always know after that is where the real jewels are. The latter are often the ones that people first mention when someone asks for recommendations.
Spoiler Ok!
This is when a major plot twist in a game becomes so ok to talk about that everyone doesn't even feel sorry for spoiling it to you. Again these are the games that years down the line are like Twilight or Harry Potter or Inception that just keeps being raised regardless of how crappy they really are especially in hindsight. People just treat these scenes as Holy Grails.
-There's no "perfect design" and there's no definite method for this question. I know that and that's why I'm making this topic. The quest for the hypotheses of many (especially contradictory ones) is just as much if not more important than a thread to discovery a theory.
-Yes, many times things last because of a high budget and many modern marketing techniques work towards things of those nature and those things often have nothing to do with the actual design of the game. That doesn't mean there aren't aspects that do apply to a game. Again, this thread is about gathering hypotheses and not stating the unhelpful stock and general obvious.
-The thread is phrased this way because it rarely helps to try to answer this generically. Take things like romantic characters. How do you make people remember them more? Great emotions, great dialogues, attractive design...but that doesn't mean just because you can point out elements of the trope that you would have thought of it before something actually occurred. Everyone thought the idea of vampires was played out and then Twilight came for example. Horrible as it is, Twilight's legacy far surpasses many better stories.
To help streamline this thread, I have put forth a few categories to consider when answering:
Reviewability:
This is a term I just came up with after sporadic viewing of the Social Network from different random intervals thanks to reruns on HBO.
The movie is notable to me not so much because of the movie but because of the conversation and the content surrounding the movie.
Unlike other movies, I haven't seen any other movie that has "hated" reviews that address the content in a shallower manner than a meaningful one. Mostly about it being boring. Equally mind boggling is that the like reviews are not very caring of the actual contents of the movie and focuses too much on the themes.
The result is that you have a movie whose intellectual content does not match it's legacy. That is to say where Citizen Kane may have people talking about Rosebud or Batman may have people talking about the Joker, people will remember Social Network as simply being Social Network and that's not bad but it's flawed in that it doesn't give credence to the actual contents inserted not only by the director but the themes raised in the entire movie.
For videogames, the easiest ways to spot this is to look at fanfictions. There are simply games that people would write more fanfictions for and other mainstream games where they won't. If ratio is not a question than content diversity certainly is.
You might wonder what this has to do with reviews but if you look at many of the clues for these factor, many of them start from reviews.
There are games with 10/10 stories like Metal Gear Solid that generations from now, people would barely talk about on their own except if marketing raises it. Then there is the opposite. Games like Portal who are only notable because of a gimmick and an addictive song ending will forever be brought up in people's heads. In RPG maker games, there are even games with cheaper stories that get more comments and quality stories that are respected but barely get any comments or discussions until which games you like pops up.
Memetic possibility:
You can't quite account for viral especially if we're taking away the marketing stuff that actually has to do with the actual game content rather than the game hype but that doesn't mean there aren't designs that are more talked about.
For example, people will talk about the increase of zippers in modern Final Fantasy costumes but they will rarely talk about the character designs in Vagrant Story despite it being a superior game with a fan following.
The difference between reviewability and this is that it pre-empts releases and then seeps into releases.
If you've monitored Gamefaqs, you've all seen this. Some unknown games suddenly jump in message board rankings because lots of people are talking about it even if it's just a request for more FAQs.
Good old games:
Good old games are games that years down the line people still talk about. Many times these are mainstream games but many times they are not. These are the types of games that encourage mods even at a later date or make people make obscure fansites for a game that was supposed to be bland, predictable and limited according to the reviewers.
Database notability:
These are the games that somehow enter the hallways of abandonware sites or indygaming databases. For example there are Rpg maker games that are on reloaded.org and there are rpg games in this very site that get the hits.
This quality is two fold. First, the quality of a game to be on more databases so that years down the line someone is guaranteed to find and maybe talk about it.
The second is pure download hits. Often times these are misleading because it can involve things with sex in their names regardless of actual content but you always know after that is where the real jewels are. The latter are often the ones that people first mention when someone asks for recommendations.
Spoiler Ok!
This is when a major plot twist in a game becomes so ok to talk about that everyone doesn't even feel sorry for spoiling it to you. Again these are the games that years down the line are like Twilight or Harry Potter or Inception that just keeps being raised regardless of how crappy they really are especially in hindsight. People just treat these scenes as Holy Grails.
Interesting read... but I am struggling with trying to figure out exactly you want us to respond with? Your post jumps from one topic to the next a lot, and it's sometimes hard to discern the point you were trying to make.
Are you wondering how we go about getting others to share our game design and development philosophies? For me, I wrote some articles and made some games...
Are you wondering how we go about getting others to share our game design and development philosophies? For me, I wrote some articles and made some games...
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=kentona
Interesting read... but I am struggling with trying to figure out exactly you want us to respond with? Your post jumps from one topic to the next a lot, and it's sometimes hard to discern the point you were trying to make.
Everything he has posted has been like this. It's just incomprehensible blather. I'll respond when he starts speaking english.
Make my games really, really good; that's the general plan.
But more seriously, I focus on entertaining, simple and unique game mechanics that are fun, addictive, challenging but not frustrating, and that reward the player for learning. (It's too bad this doesn't stand out as much as art, ha.)
P.S. I'm responding solely to the topic title because your post is really hard to... comprehend. You really gotta put some blinders on your train of thought, dude.
But more seriously, I focus on entertaining, simple and unique game mechanics that are fun, addictive, challenging but not frustrating, and that reward the player for learning. (It's too bad this doesn't stand out as much as art, ha.)
P.S. I'm responding solely to the topic title because your post is really hard to... comprehend. You really gotta put some blinders on your train of thought, dude.
author=kentona
Interesting read... but I am struggling with trying to figure out exactly you want us to respond with? Your post jumps from one topic to the next a lot, and it's sometimes hard to discern the point you were trying to make.
Are you wondering how we go about getting others to share our game design and development philosophies? For me, I wrote some articles and made some games...
Well it's two fold.
Here's the dictionary definition of legacy:
something that someone has achieved that continues to exists after they stop working or die
So on one hand, yes. Writing articles, making your code open source and creating websites do that.
At the same time, how many open source software get followed up upon?
How many articles stay up and get reread once they are no longer current events?
...but then this is not about general discussions. This is about "game" design.
How do some of the great games increase their memorability?
People will always remember Aeris' death for example...but not all rpg deaths are remembered
How would you predict and try to design around it? Not the death scene but this idea on gambling that this choice you did will make it not just memorable but more influential and oftly cited for years to come regardless of how the reviewers rate your game?
How would you increase the legacy of your game design? Philosophically, influentially, mentally, everything. What specific aspects do you do so that even if, years down the road after you have died, new people who don't get your message or who find them dated still consider your rpg the equivalent of the videogame versions of Ayn Rand's books, Lovecraft lore, Harry Potter Fables, Stephen King Novels, James Cameron movies, Nietzsche's mystery, Marxist doctrines, John Adams' letters to his wife...and if you think these are too mainstream: How about being on par with the guys known for making Fear Effect, Hell Night, Clock Tower, Bible Black, Half a Minute Hero, Three the Hard Way, Kartia, Shadow Madness, Brigandine, Azure Dreams, Water Closet...names of whom are only relevant to the hardcore niche but the legacy of the games transcend the legacy of the names...for good and for bad.
Oh and there's just one question. It's in the OP title. I may tend to come off like I'm blabbering or jumping from topic to topic but I never do. I simply raise and offer perplexing questions and answers that have layers. Maybe by saying that I come off like a self-absorbed douchebag but I did give a warning in the OP:
Again, this thread is about gathering hypotheses and not stating the unhelpful stock and general obvious.
Assuming kentona theory is the right one, if I were to make something that would continue generating interest after a long time, I'd probably leave some things morally ambiguos or up to interpretation to encourage people to discuss and confront each others opinions on the matter.
Ok, this still falls into unhelpful stock and general obvious territory. orz
Ok, this still falls into unhelpful stock and general obvious territory. orz
I'm on the belief that everything has a lasting legacy but if it makes it easier for someone to share their idea then yes, you could say that.
The problem with lasting legacy is that ask most people and even those who have little ambition, would mis-predict and maybe even devalue the very thing that turns out to be the lasting legacy they desire.
We see this all the time with the cliche issue of a guy not wanting to be a dad and then upon seeing a baby, ends up wanting to be a great dad.
With game design, it's even more subtle. Even without the lasting legacy bit, many game designers have experienced concepts that turn out much different and much better than their original idea by simply working more and more on finishing the games. It's partially why many people even advise against big project games. Sometimes the finished product fills our projects more than what we could achieve if we just keep prolonging the finished quality.
Sometimes putting blinders on something is the thing to make a bad design look great. Sometimes though, like this thread, you can't. If you do you hold back on making hypotheses and end up sucking the philosophy out of your answers and that's 99% of the content right there.
Sometimes a question just has to let go. Instead of asking "what" it has to ask, "What would you do to up the quality of this aspect?" In this case, increasing the actual legacy and not just establishing a lasting legacy. (because everyone does have a legacy, we just sometimes assume there's such a thing as not leaving behind one)
The problem with lasting legacy is that ask most people and even those who have little ambition, would mis-predict and maybe even devalue the very thing that turns out to be the lasting legacy they desire.
We see this all the time with the cliche issue of a guy not wanting to be a dad and then upon seeing a baby, ends up wanting to be a great dad.
With game design, it's even more subtle. Even without the lasting legacy bit, many game designers have experienced concepts that turn out much different and much better than their original idea by simply working more and more on finishing the games. It's partially why many people even advise against big project games. Sometimes the finished product fills our projects more than what we could achieve if we just keep prolonging the finished quality.
Sometimes putting blinders on something is the thing to make a bad design look great. Sometimes though, like this thread, you can't. If you do you hold back on making hypotheses and end up sucking the philosophy out of your answers and that's 99% of the content right there.
Sometimes a question just has to let go. Instead of asking "what" it has to ask, "What would you do to up the quality of this aspect?" In this case, increasing the actual legacy and not just establishing a lasting legacy. (because everyone does have a legacy, we just sometimes assume there's such a thing as not leaving behind one)
author=heisenman
Assuming kentona theory is the right one, if I were to make something that would continue generating interest after a long time, I'd probably leave some things morally ambiguos or up to interpretation to encourage people to discuss and confront each others opinions on the matter.
Ok, this still falls into unhelpful stock and general obvious territory. orz
This is actually similar to a well-known literary technique that Hemingway coined "the Iceburg Theory". How it works: you have a fully fleshed-out plot, world, and storyline, but you only present the reader (or in this case, player) with 10% of it - similar to how you can only see the tip of an iceburg. What happens is that your story will naturally hint at but not directly tell the rest of the story for you. It avoids tedious or boring "plot dumps" and leaves a lot up to the player's imagination, which is often more interesting than what you would have written.
Example games that have embraced this: Canabalt, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac
Note that this works especially well in an interactive medium like games, because the story subconsciously develops in the player's mind as he or she plays, saving you from the doldrums of boring and terrible exposition dumps.
It doesn't matter. Legacies are not established by one person. A designer can work towards aiming for it but one person's opinion does not create a valid hypothesis for the actual legacy.
Plus I haven't played the game.
If this link (http://rpgmaker.wikia.com/wiki/RPG_Advocate) is credible though then the legacy of the game, at least a couple of them, are that:
1. People felt it deserved a wiki article.
2. The game was part of a series that made people (at least the wiki writers) think the developer was "infamous"
3. They also think the developer is best known for it.
As you can see though, none of these is helpful or even dealing with game design. If games can show legacies then this thread need not be made and all I have to do is just play them. Unfortunately all playing will show me is my personal emotion towards a game. Sometimes even lurking on fan boards and reading comments are misleading. They can hint to a legacy but we never know what aspect is something that came from the designer's hands and what aspect came forth by accident.
Plus I haven't played the game.
If this link (http://rpgmaker.wikia.com/wiki/RPG_Advocate) is credible though then the legacy of the game, at least a couple of them, are that:
1. People felt it deserved a wiki article.
2. The game was part of a series that made people (at least the wiki writers) think the developer was "infamous"
3. They also think the developer is best known for it.
As you can see though, none of these is helpful or even dealing with game design. If games can show legacies then this thread need not be made and all I have to do is just play them. Unfortunately all playing will show me is my personal emotion towards a game. Sometimes even lurking on fan boards and reading comments are misleading. They can hint to a legacy but we never know what aspect is something that came from the designer's hands and what aspect came forth by accident.
author=slashphoenix
This is actually similar to a well-known literary technique that Hemingway coined "the Iceburg Theory". How it works: you have a fully fleshed-out plot, world, and storyline, but you only present the reader (or in this case, player) with 10% of it - similar to how you can only see the tip of an iceburg. What happens is that your story will naturally hint at but not directly tell the rest of the story for you. It avoids tedious or boring "plot dumps" and leaves a lot up to the player's imagination, which is often more interesting than what you would have written.
Example games that have embraced this: Canabalt, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac
Note that this works especially well in games, because the story subconsciously develops in the player's mind as he or she plays, saving you from the doldrums of boring and terrible exposition dumps.
Yep that's one general technique of upping the memorability of a game.
I sort of address that with the categories. There are legacies that are oft remembered. Say someone in movies will always bring up Citizen Kane.
Then there are superior legacies where memorability is mixed with details like how Dicaprio and Winslet fit together chemistry wise in Titanic. Inferior memorability but superior details to most of the people who consider the legacy of Titanic compared to Citizen Kane.
It's very sporadic though. For example one will have difficulty establishing the legacy of hate and controversy behind turning Titanic into Romeo and Juliet and then mix it with the positives of Titanic as a great disaster/romance story and still be able to show all aspects of how certain details up the film's legacy without favoring one preferred legacy over the other.
It's why extrapolating from external examples are problematic. Given enough interest, any book can be analyzed from smudge to smudge. You rarely get any headway in game design though other than filling a database with more and more things that amount to sets of general principles rather than getting a glimpse of the process behind the curated and well prepared intentions of the game designer..You rarely figure out if it's a gut instinct turned wrong. A lesser credited cheap marketing ploy. A theme tactic. An emotional link to the designer's current state of mind that actually turns out to be applicable to many general games but just happened to be sealed within the designer's head without even him realizing it...there's alot of these confounding mysteries.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
so what is this topic actually about
author=Snodgrassauthor=slashphoenixYep that's one general technique of upping the memorability of a game.
This is actually similar to a well-known literary technique that Hemingway coined "the Iceburg Theory". How it works: you have a fully fleshed-out plot, world, and storyline, but you only present the reader (or in this case, player) with 10% of it - similar to how you can only see the tip of an iceburg. What happens is that your story will naturally hint at but not directly tell the rest of the story for you. It avoids tedious or boring "plot dumps" and leaves a lot up to the player's imagination, which is often more interesting than what you would have written.
Example games that have embraced this: Canabalt, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac
Note that this works especially well in games, because the story subconsciously develops in the player's mind as he or she plays, saving you from the doldrums of boring and terrible exposition dumps.
I sort of address that with the categories. There are legacies that are oft remembered. Say someone in movies will always bring up Citizen Kane.
Then there are superior legacies where memorability is mixed with details like how Dicaprio and Winslet fit together chemistry wise in Titanic. Inferior memorability but superior details to most of the people who consider the legacy of Titanic compared to Citizen Kane.
It's very sporadic though. For example one will have difficulty establishing the legacy of hate and controversy behind turning Titanic into Romeo and Juliet and then mix it with the positives of Titanic as a great disaster/romance story and still be able to show all aspects of how certain details up the film's legacy without favoring one preferred legacy over the other.
It's why extrapolating from external examples are problematic. Given enough interest, any book can be analyzed from smudge to smudge. You rarely get any headway in game design though other than filling a database with more and more things that amount to sets of general principles rather than getting a glimpse of the process behind the curated and well prepared intentions of the game designer..You rarely figure out if it's a gut instinct turned wrong. A lesser credited cheap marketing ploy. A theme tactic. An emotional link to the designer's current state of mind that actually turns out to be applicable to many general games but just happened to be sealed within the designer's head without even him realizing it...there's alot of these confounding mysteries.
You have a smelly bottom.
author=LockeZ
so what is this topic actually about
I'm gonna be honest, it's the topic title and ONLY the topic title.
Avee
5794
author=Snodgrass
Everyone thought the idea of vampires was played out and then Twilight came for example. Horrible as it is, Twilight's legacy far surpasses many better stories.
I'm not sure if you're being serious but I'll presume so, at least for a while.
I'd like to know who you're referring to when you say that "everyone" thought the vampire theme is obsolete, and what are your sources.
Snodgrass, if you are to talk about your own thoughts and perceptions, state that they are so. It's fine, you know.
You are confusing legacy with trend here. The greatest legacies in vampire themed works of art are those of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. These stories inspired a plethora of new vampire movies and novels that have been published every year for the last several dozens of years.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was trendy. Many ulterior works were inspired by and emulated the show's depiction of vampires yet didn't try to reinvent the theme much. Stephenie Meyer did just that: putting the vampire theme together with the stupid teenager, emo and gossip girl themes, and the recipe proved successful in terms of audience rate. Yet it is obvious that Twilight is a trend that won't leave a significant legacy, as were Buffy, Harry Potter and the Back Street Boys.
Uhh...trend after your death? Um...really?
I get how you can say that about vampires because I spoke that more in passing seeing as this is still about game design but it was obvious the vampire genre was being overplayed before Twilight arrived thanks to the popularity of Buffy and Angel.
That ushered in some vampire theme teen movies that broke the mythos of the vampires further. Most notably True Blood and Moonlight. The later Blade sequels probably belong here too. Anyone who has followed that "trend" knew that even if you were a fan of those themes, the genre was being saturated and even traditionally good designs were not gaining traction. Moonlight fans for example were notable for loving the fact that Moonlight stood on it's own and brought some fresher originality to the theme but with the way the vampire as common guys themes were playing out all over the place, it just didn't have traction to stay on TV for long.
Twilight then came and suddenly a bunch of new stupid concepts of the supernatural came and ushered in more copycats. If you want to talk about the overall history of fictional vampires though, yeah of course Anne Rice and Dracula were very notable but I was speaking within a vacuum of space and because this is not about vampire but just an analogy to give people an idea of the different subtle depths and types of legacies, I gave a lighter sweep of the details partly because I'm not much of a vampire fan to begin with and again the point of mentioning those is to show how certain legacies regardless of quality can be raise or lowered with certain ideas many of whom don't just fall under "make a better product". It just wouldn't make sense to force players to have been part of the Anne Rice craze or any specific vampire craze just to get that idea. Twilight at least is more universally known especially in the mainstream. Even someone like me who has never read or watched it know some parts of it's tale thanks to the wide spread hate that ushered in satirical pieces that are more tolerable to consume.
Your argument is valid but the problem is you're looking too much at something that doesn't need it. It's like if my reply to you was to say Buffy was never trendy that's why it never clicked as a movie and that quality not design made the later TV series work. IT DOESN'T MATTER! The context of any thread on a subforum called Game Design & Theory is always Game Design & Theory. That's the goal every thread here should have. It doesn't matter what the side examples specifically are, the important part is whether they link to the ultimate topic which is game design and also whether they are multiple topics or just expanded layers of one topic which is the topic title/question.
It's not about what those specific semantics are all about if you truly are about the topic of game design. They are legit issues in context only if this were a vampire forum and the point of the topic was to determine what is trendy vs. what is legacy but like I said, it's impossible to be confused about the two in terms of game design because every game has a legacy. It also doesn't make sense to up the trends nor to suggest ideas of upping trends. You just look at the trending games and extrapolate for yourself if that's anyone's goals. It doesn't need designer input.
Even more mind boggling, the concept of trends would compound the very problem of what I was trying to avoid which was to avoid obvious stock statements. Again it's like the context of trying to rephrase this from upping the legacy of game design into what game designers would want their lasting legacy of. If I truly meant that, I'm basically removing the part of the question that gives opportunities for answers to have actual value vs. just a thread that promotes lazy answers that don't help with providing insight to game design.
No, it's more like you're confusing a thread about game design (that's created under a sub-forum for game design) and thinking it's a topic about vampires, trends, some form of philosophy where legacies only apply to famous titles...or some other topic that ultimately even if it's answered or addressed don't relate much to motivating unique answers that would contribute to game design. Case in point you mentioned greatest legacies as if my analogy somehow brings up the idea of greatest legacies. You can do a word for word search for the word greatest and you'll see you were the first reply to even bring that specific word (greatest) out of thin air.
Even the word trend, the difficulty with even considering your statement is that once I consider it...it's so wrong that I can't even write a proper counterpoint because it's just so...wrong and even with multiple edits to this reply, I still have a hard time showing why it's not about trends because again, it's so confounding that even the slightest respect to that possibility unlinks itself from game design. From the very get go the concept of legacies and trends are so far apart that it's not even a round peg to a square hole. It's a branch that totally rips the contextual skeleton of a thread about game design once I do so. Seriously, once it became about trends, all I can think of was non-game design related discussions such as the marketing, advertising, packaging, timing, wrapping of a game rather than the specific content of the game.
I get how you can say that about vampires because I spoke that more in passing seeing as this is still about game design but it was obvious the vampire genre was being overplayed before Twilight arrived thanks to the popularity of Buffy and Angel.
That ushered in some vampire theme teen movies that broke the mythos of the vampires further. Most notably True Blood and Moonlight. The later Blade sequels probably belong here too. Anyone who has followed that "trend" knew that even if you were a fan of those themes, the genre was being saturated and even traditionally good designs were not gaining traction. Moonlight fans for example were notable for loving the fact that Moonlight stood on it's own and brought some fresher originality to the theme but with the way the vampire as common guys themes were playing out all over the place, it just didn't have traction to stay on TV for long.
Twilight then came and suddenly a bunch of new stupid concepts of the supernatural came and ushered in more copycats. If you want to talk about the overall history of fictional vampires though, yeah of course Anne Rice and Dracula were very notable but I was speaking within a vacuum of space and because this is not about vampire but just an analogy to give people an idea of the different subtle depths and types of legacies, I gave a lighter sweep of the details partly because I'm not much of a vampire fan to begin with and again the point of mentioning those is to show how certain legacies regardless of quality can be raise or lowered with certain ideas many of whom don't just fall under "make a better product". It just wouldn't make sense to force players to have been part of the Anne Rice craze or any specific vampire craze just to get that idea. Twilight at least is more universally known especially in the mainstream. Even someone like me who has never read or watched it know some parts of it's tale thanks to the wide spread hate that ushered in satirical pieces that are more tolerable to consume.
Your argument is valid but the problem is you're looking too much at something that doesn't need it. It's like if my reply to you was to say Buffy was never trendy that's why it never clicked as a movie and that quality not design made the later TV series work. IT DOESN'T MATTER! The context of any thread on a subforum called Game Design & Theory is always Game Design & Theory. That's the goal every thread here should have. It doesn't matter what the side examples specifically are, the important part is whether they link to the ultimate topic which is game design and also whether they are multiple topics or just expanded layers of one topic which is the topic title/question.
It's not about what those specific semantics are all about if you truly are about the topic of game design. They are legit issues in context only if this were a vampire forum and the point of the topic was to determine what is trendy vs. what is legacy but like I said, it's impossible to be confused about the two in terms of game design because every game has a legacy. It also doesn't make sense to up the trends nor to suggest ideas of upping trends. You just look at the trending games and extrapolate for yourself if that's anyone's goals. It doesn't need designer input.
Even more mind boggling, the concept of trends would compound the very problem of what I was trying to avoid which was to avoid obvious stock statements. Again it's like the context of trying to rephrase this from upping the legacy of game design into what game designers would want their lasting legacy of. If I truly meant that, I'm basically removing the part of the question that gives opportunities for answers to have actual value vs. just a thread that promotes lazy answers that don't help with providing insight to game design.
No, it's more like you're confusing a thread about game design (that's created under a sub-forum for game design) and thinking it's a topic about vampires, trends, some form of philosophy where legacies only apply to famous titles...or some other topic that ultimately even if it's answered or addressed don't relate much to motivating unique answers that would contribute to game design. Case in point you mentioned greatest legacies as if my analogy somehow brings up the idea of greatest legacies. You can do a word for word search for the word greatest and you'll see you were the first reply to even bring that specific word (greatest) out of thin air.
Even the word trend, the difficulty with even considering your statement is that once I consider it...it's so wrong that I can't even write a proper counterpoint because it's just so...wrong and even with multiple edits to this reply, I still have a hard time showing why it's not about trends because again, it's so confounding that even the slightest respect to that possibility unlinks itself from game design. From the very get go the concept of legacies and trends are so far apart that it's not even a round peg to a square hole. It's a branch that totally rips the contextual skeleton of a thread about game design once I do so. Seriously, once it became about trends, all I can think of was non-game design related discussions such as the marketing, advertising, packaging, timing, wrapping of a game rather than the specific content of the game.
Since we're only supposed to respond to the thread title, not the first post (that's a weird concept), I assume that you mean leaving a legacy of really cool games that people will point to say, "This is how it's done."
Sure, I've got some games under my belt, but none of them are shown as examples of what to do. I may have a few examples of what not to do, though! Which kinda counts?
Sure, I've got some games under my belt, but none of them are shown as examples of what to do. I may have a few examples of what not to do, though! Which kinda counts?
